WHAT DID THE SPANISH BRING TO PERU? - HISTORY - 2025

The Spaniards brought to Peru, as well as to the rest of Latin America, a series of products, technologies or knowledge that it would very likely have taken the indigenous areas to obtain or develop.

America had resources that did not exist in Europe, and that had it not been for the discovery, they would never have reached European hands. In the same way, European societies brought with them all the civilizing machinery possible, implementing, domesticating and adapting to this new environment the same mechanisms of production and sustenance that they had put into practice for centuries.

The Catholic religion was one of the first implantations of the Spanish in Peru

In the case of the region that today makes up Peru, they received more or less the same products and technologies as other Spanish colonies throughout the continent, with the difference of Peru's privileged position as a colony.

This status, which Mexico also possessed, allowed them to be the first to receive and implement novelties, even once they entered the industrial stage.

What did the Spanish bring to Peru?

Francisco Pizarro. Source: Amable-Paul Coutan, via Wikimedia Commons.

Agricultural and livestock products

The Spanish brought with them to American lands, Peru included, products for cultivation such as wheat, barley, sugar cane, coffee, mustard; grains such as rice, chickpea, lentils, beans; vegetables and herbs such as onion, oregano, rosemary, carrot, lettuce, spinach; fruits such as lemon, grapefruit, grapes, etc.

The Peruvian territories presented as the only domestic animals species such as the dog, the llama, roosters and guinea pigs. Similarly, they did not have a livestock system that allowed them to sustain themselves with animal products.

The Spanish contributed much of the cattle, sheep, horses and pigs that remain to this day.

Cows and all their derived products (meat, cheeses, milk); horses and donkeys for transportation and cargo; sheep, goats and pigs, for their meat, wool and skin.

The appearance of new domestic animals, intended for sustenance and commercialization, laid the foundations for the Spanish to establish the foundations of a market and a hacienda system.

They were also in charge of bringing raw materials from the old continent to finalize products in the growing Peruvian industry.

A special case can be considered the arrival of the bull to Peruvian lands for mixed purposes.

It was not only used to guarantee the sustainability of livestock, but also to establish Spanish cultural traditions in Peruvian lands and communities, such as bullfights.

Engineering and technology

Francisco Álvarez Toledo, Viceroy of Peru

At first, the Spanish brought with them metals and raw materials for the manufacture of tools that exceeded the rudimentary ones of the natives.

These were developed and put into practice in activities such as agriculture and construction. They also replaced the native weapons with the advanced Spanish war arsenal.

The paper was an essential acquisition for the Peruvian community, and the American community in general. Although at first it was totally controlled by the conquerors, for the formal registration of merchandise, judicial reports, reports to the Crown; and for the writers and chroniclers who recorded colonial events and developments.

The favored condition of Peru during the conquest allowed the best stones and materials to be imported for the construction of buildings and social development.

The Spanish took advantage of the commercial routes used by the Incas to be able to deliver their supplies to other populations and settlements.

Later, thanks to European support, the industrialization process led Peru to implement the first railways and machinery for mass production of products.

Religion and ceremonies

In Peru, as in other regions of America, Christianity arrived as the New World faith. It was sought to impose as a unique form of belief, and it was accepted to a greater or lesser level by some communities; with more or less violence.

The establishment of the Catholic Church in the Peruvian region also allowed the development of new structures and institutions that were coupled with colonial society.

The construction of churches, seminaries and convents allowed the population expansion throughout the Peruvian territory, accessing new sources of resources previously inaccessible to the main colonial cities.

In the same way, the Spanish tried to implement their own traditions in indigenous society, the result of which was mixed festivities that have been evolving to the present day, rescuing their own values ​​over Europeans, or vice versa.

Diseases and miscegenation

The arrival of the Spaniards to American lands not only brought with it the imposition of a new faith on the aboriginal communities, and the trinkets that in principle they gave in exchange for minerals and gold.

The arrival of an uncontrolled fauna of rodents such as rats, and even insects, and the same conditions of many of the Spanish sailors and soldiers spread a series of diseases that strongly affected the indigenous populations.

The indigenous immune systems did not have the defenses to resist the viruses and symptoms carried by the Spanish.

Similarly, contagion through animal or insect contact seriously affected communities in Peru.

The local population declined not only as a result of the battles, but also of the diseases; in the same way, the fauna and flora were affected by the insertion of animals that also carried negative affections.

Spanish integration and miscegenation with aboriginal communities gave rise to the first generations of totally American mestizos, which also served to provide the first beginnings of social stratification in colonial Peru, with certain similarities to the rest of the regions.

It can be considered that the Spaniards, leaving aside the negative aspects of a conquering process, provided the colonies of Peru with the necessary tools for the economic and social development of the colony.

The cities of Peru had functional material elements, through their buildings, machinery, modes of production, which in other cities or general captaincies of the continent were still incipient.

The negative consequences of a cultural and social approach were suffered, not only by Peru, but by all of America.

References

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2. Crosby, A. (nd). The Columbian Exchange. The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History.
3. Elliott, JH (1992). The Old World and the New: 1492-1650. Cambridge University Press.
4. Guardino, P., & Walker, C. (1994). State, society and politics in Peru and Mexico between the end of the colony and the beginning of the republic. Historica, 27-68.
5. Hocquenghem, A.-M. (1993). The Spanish on the roads of the extreme north of Peru in 1532. Presentations and Conclusions. 1st Week of Cultural Identity 1992, (pp. 1-67). Piura.
6. Lockhart, J. (1994). Spanish Peru, 1532–1560: A Social History. University of Wisconsin Press.
7. Stern, SJ (1993). Peru's Indian Peoples and the Challenge of Spanish Conquest: Huamanga to 1640. University of Wisconsin Press.